


the wave, to the ocean

by primasveraas



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Bittersweet Ending, Death from Old Age, Finn-centric (Star Wars), Finnpoe - Freeform, Force-Sensitive Finn (Star Wars), Gen, M/M, Minor Original Character(s), Post-Canon, Post-Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, So much angst, god this is fucking sad idk what to tell you, someone asked me for angsty finnpoe headcanons once and this was my response, this wont make anyone feel better but this is what i think happens eventually
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-28
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-12 04:15:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29753916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/primasveraas/pseuds/primasveraas
Summary: Poe dies after a lifetime spent together. Finn deals with the aftermath of losing his partner and other half.It's the hardest thing he's ever done.
Relationships: Poe Dameron/Finn
Kudos: 7





	the wave, to the ocean

Poe dies on a quiet summer evening. Their bedroom, packed with children and grandchildren, is silent aside from muffled cries. Outside their home, crickets chirp, overlapping and loud, enough so that Finn is thinking of their noisy chorus when his husband takes his last breath.

Everything and nothing changes- the Damerons have been mourning preemptively, and Poe’s death is not sudden. There is only sorrow in missing him, rather than the opportunities lost with the end of a life. They cry and comfort each other, as they have done for so many days prior, and they do not need to conjure up funeral plans. Poe wrote his first will when he was 19, and since then, he merely edited and revised his wishes as his life evolved.

Finn experiences his first second, night, week, as a widower. He and Poe spent a lifetime together, and then there is nothing.

Nothing is not nothing. It’s the unification of his entire family, of old friends and beings from all corners of the galaxy. Decades worth of meeting, knowing, loving people. That is the relief to the pain, that he may be surrounded by all the lives he and Poe have touched. His children don’t leave his side. 

Distinctly, Finn is aware that he needs them as much as they need him, but this is a role he has always struggled with. He hesitates to ask for help from the people who have just lost their father. They love and know him, but they cannot break through his veneer.

He can hide his grief with a gentle smile or a hug. It’s easier because he means it, but these moments are a droplet of joy amongst an ocean of sorrow. Still, on the surface, all appears well.

When Finn learned the ways of the Force, he became well attuned to the feelings of others. He knows the warm light of happiness, the fire of anger, and the stormy turmoil of pain. He knows that, try as one might, these feelings cannot be hidden or erased. He’s felt the pain of widows and the bereaved. It’s a beacon in the Force, overwhelming and blinding.

Rey can hardly look at him. He can feel her pain, he knows the hurt of his children. Finn knows that Rey must be drowning in his sorrow. He is lost, and he knows that Rey can feel this turmoil just as clearly as he lives it.

Yet she is the last to depart even after duty calls his children away. Weeks fade to months, and although there is no ground beneath Finn’s feet, something like normalcy returns.

It is not quite true that Rey leaves Finn. He examines what’s left of his life before him, and then he cannot stay on Yavin, in a place that still smells like Poe, every inch of their house defined by their life together. 

Finn finds a quiet corner of the galaxy, and he goes. Rey discovers a brief holo explaining why he’s left, and that is all. There are a few frequencies she and his family can call on, but no coordinates with which to find him. It’s him and BB-8, and Finn is really, truly alone, for the first time since he was 21.

In his new bed, it’s less strange to wake up alone. The mattress is smaller, and the sun shines in at a different angle than it did in his room on Yavin IV. Sometimes, there is still a phantom warmth next to him, and in the moments before Finn fully wakes, he can feel Poe there beside him. He’s not sure, but Finn thinks that he talks to Poe then. It makes his heart ache when he realizes, like a black hole in his chest weighing him down and sucking him into unfathomable depths of despair, because reality quickly sets in and he is talking to thin air.

He misses Poe. He wishes, more than anything, to hear his laugh, to have a conversation with him about the weather or something trivial, to hug his husband or hold his hand. He misses the warmth of his embrace, and he remembers the comfort that came along with it, but Finn remains cold and alone. Unreachable by design, by space and depression and grief.

Finn will heal by himself, first. He will experience every part of this pain, and that’s how it will be. The tide must swell before it can recede.

In the beginning, beautiful things do not inspire him to live. The sun shines after rain, and Finn thinks to himself that he would be at peace, if he rejoined the Force at this moment. He wouldn’t be without Poe any longer. That would be good. That would be easier.

So he waits to do just that. It has been so long since he’s lived without his family that Finn doesn’t expect to last long without them. He settles down on a small farm by the seaside, and a boy from a local village brings him food every week. He spends most of his days reading or watching the waves crash on the rocks below him.

Finn waits to die and he waits for the grief to lessen in the meantime. It follows him wherever he goes; it is his only companion, aside from a lonely droid and a child who doesn’t ever stay for longer than five minutes.

He misses his children. They are insistent on finding him, on visiting at the very least, but Finn declines every offer. He doesn’t want them to see another parent waste away, or for them to be pulled under by his grief. It is better, for everyone, that he is alone.

Finn weeps more during that period than he ever has before in his life. It hits him suddenly, making his knees weak and crumbling his resolve. He falls to the ground, hands covering his mouth to muffle the sobs. No one is there to hear him, but the sobs fight their way out anyway, and they always stop too soon, before any true release of sorrow can occur.

The beach, which is mostly jagged pebbles scattered below the cliff where he lives, is where Finn goes when he ventures to leave the house. He wonders, more than anything, if Poe would have liked it here, if they could have settled down here like they did on Yavin IV. It rains a lot here, too, but the air is dry instead of humid, and the air tastes perpetually of salt. Crickets still sing him to sleep every night, but they are joined by the rhythm of waves against the shore.

Finn likes this, though he thinks his husband would have never quite adjusted to this change. It’s peaceful here, but noisier than Yavin. It’s colder too, which Poe had never enjoyed.

 _Had never._ Poe, in the past tense. This is easier to accept than the reality it belies. Now, he is away from the empty house and the grave. The only evidence of his loss is grief and memory, so perhaps this is why Finn thinks that maybe, just maybe, he could fly back home and find Poe waiting for him.

It is three months before Finn realizes: he is waiting for Poe. If he died, he would be reunited with him; if the grief disappeared, it could only mean a reunion. He is waiting for what may never come.

And he lives. And the grief never goes away.

Something like spring happens, half a cycle into his stay. The boy tells him in broken Basic that this means more rain, which Finn is surprised to discover is possible after endless days of downpour. After this comes planting season, which Finn surmised after living on a farming moon, with his husband who was raised on a farm. The boy laughs at him when he says this. Finn smiles for the first time in months.

It rains, and Finn lies in bed, wrapped in the blankets he brought from home, listening to the torrent against the roof. The cadence is different; the roof here is simple and stone, but if he closes his eyes, he can nearly imagine that he’s on Yavin, that Poe is beside him and they’re enjoying a lazy afternoon together.

This type of thinking hurts more than it heals. It happens on the nights that Finn cries himself to sleep. He longs for the past and impossible comforts, and the gaping hole in his chest widens.

His heart is dead weight in his chest, and it is cruel that he lives. There is nothing to live for. His family is strong enough to mourn him and live, and he has already shaped the galaxy into a place for them to thrive. There is nothing left for him in a universe devoid of his soulmate.

The boy and his family are harvesting the first of their crops. In addition to the plain bread and simple staples delivered to him at the beginning of the week, Finn receives a bag of purple berries and some other orange vegetables. He thanks the boy, who cites his mother, so Finn passes his thanks to the whole family. The next week, even more are entrusted to him, and Finn gains the impression that they have a surplus. When he grumbles that he’s only one person, that he can’t possibly eat this much, and that his droid can’t be expected to help him eat, the boy laughs at him again. Finn realizes he hasn’t talked to him beyond a brief thanks every week and a passing conversation once or twice. BB-8 is often powered down, too. It’s been a long time since Finn has heard laughter, or held a conversation.

He’s brought some sort of sweet bread the next week, made from the purple berries. Finn’s never had it before. It’s odd, to have lived so long and to still learn new things, especially in a place so lonely and from a being so young.

He asks the boy his name before he goes. It’s Becke, and he’s eight (this information seems attached to his introduction). Finn hadn’t known before. He hadn’t asked when he first arrived, only inquired to Becke’s mother if she knew anyone who could bring him groceries. She had nodded, and gestured to the blonde boy reluctantly holding her hand. He spoke the best Basic out of their family, and he needed to get out of her house more often.

Becke smiles at him, most of his teeth missing. It reminds him of a young girl, and her children that kept her parents and grandparents perpetually exhausted. Finn understands why his mother appointed him to this task.

Becke leaves that week, and this time, he hollers his goodbye over his shoulder as he retreats.

Finn smiles again.

Summer and fall mean that Finn is stuffed with fresh harvestables. Becke tells him about his afternoons helping on the farm, in short, slowly extracted sentences. Sometimes Becke comes in chattering (or complaining) about the work, and sometimes, Finn dares to ask a few questions. A rounded conversation takes a month and a half, but they both readily accept this pace. It’s enough for the attention span of an eight-year-old talking to an old man and the old man in question.

Becke talks about his family, and what he’s learning in school. It’s menial, yet Finn cares in the way that kind people do when a child talks. There are concerns and viewpoints only applicable through the eyes of a child, and it’s simpler than loneliness and pain, and one day, Becke spends an hour showing Finn his attempts at juggling with the fruit he brought that morning. He’s not exceptionally good at it, but Finn encourages him, and it is the lightest he’s felt since before Poe died.

The next week, Becke invites him to dinner with his family. Finn declines, but the week after that, another invitation is extended. He accepts.

Their communication is limited, but gestures and fragments of sentences are enough. They get by; Finn learns that Becke’s father and two older brothers have the same sense of humor as the boy- there is laughter to be found in even the most miserable of circumstances. Finn finds it hard to complain around them, especially when Becke’s mother, Ola, keeps loading his plate up with food, even once Finn starts protesting that it’s too much for him. The other men laugh, and Becke’s father tells him that no one can resist his wife’s will. So, he will be fed, and fed well.

By fall, Finn regularly makes the trek to their house for dinners. He helps Becke with his homework. Ola herself visits Finn, and the next afternoon, Becke arrives with cleaning supplies. Suddenly, Finn is not just looked after, he is cared for. He laughs and he talks, and he does not have to think of the grief and the pain.

He lives.

Sunset on the ocean is one of the most beautiful things Finn has ever seen. Orange light weaves through the tall grass on the edge of the cliffs and turns the water below golden. The skies fill with purple and pink clouds, mingling to create colors Finn has never dreamed of before.

He hopes, every evening, that he lives to see the next day’s magnificent sunset.

Finn knows that he could stay here forever, that he may live to see Becke grow into a man, that Ola will cook and clean and feed him until the end of his days. He is happy there, after thinking that he could never be happy again. There are simple and wonderful things, and Finn enjoys them all.

But as Becke gets older, and as the years pass, Finn thinks of his own grandchildren, how they must be growing and learning. They are without their _Abuelo_ and their grandpa, and he does not get to see or know them.

If Finn returns, he will be reunited with those he loves most in the universe.

He will also have to face an old life, one that should have Poe in it but does no longer.

The choice is neither quick nor sudden. Becke is twelve; Finn is happy worlds away from Yavin.

But there is more. He misses his children’s laughter and the light of his grandkids. He misses his home and the richness of life in the jungle. He misses Rey and her eternal optimism, her smile.

He is not complete without these things. Infrequent, broken calls are not enough.

If he was meant to outlive Poe, then Finn must face that. He will do it, at last, with his family at his side.

Becke and Finn both weep when he leaves. He’d planned to do so on a sunny afternoon, but became delayed by last-minute repairs, so he hugs Becke and his family goodbye as the sun wavers just above the horizon. Its dying sunbeams illuminate Becke’s face, then the boy scrubs the tears off his cheeks. Finn manages one last goodbye before boarding his ship, and he watches the small family wave goodbye before they go, flying low towards the sunset before taking off to the stars.

He contacts his eldest first and tells her that he’s coming home. She breaks down in tears over the call, and promises to meet him on Yavin. They’ve missed him, she says, and they’re glad he’s coming home.

His children- three out of four who could make it in time- are waiting outside his house. They embrace him, holding him tight, and Finn does his best not to cry too excessively. He’s welcomed home, which matters most, and they’re glad to see him.

It hurts, to be back in the hastily dusted house. There are holos of Poe on the walls. His youngest son has Poe’s mannerisms; his youngest daughter has his same cheeky smile. 

But he loves them, and it’s worth the pain. 

He and the brunt of the grief are together again; he’s only a few klicks away from where Poe is buried. His children cling to his hands, and ask him how he is. BB-8 explains all of what he can of their absence, and when it’s Finn’s turn, all he can say is that he couldn’t stay.

Their acceptance of this fact hinges on Finn’s promises that eventually, he was happy. He was cared for and not truly alone. He came back to them.

His eldest corners Finn and tells him, with her jaw firmly set, that they missed him and in some ways, they lost both of their fathers at once. Finn bows his head and apologizes, but he could not stay. Without Poe, he had to learn to live again. He had to _want_ to live again, and he couldn’t do that while so haunted by loss.

She doesn’t understand, not fully, but she accepts this and tells him she’s glad he’s home. He is too, and the joy of being back with his family overpowers the grief.

It’s storming, hours later, when they hear Rey arrive. She barges through the door, drenched, and wraps her arms around Finn, tears shining in her eyes. She missed him and she loves him, she murmurs, then she pulls back and offers him a watery smile

Finn had forgotten how much her presence lights up a room. Yavin hums with an energy that he has not felt in many years, and it rushes over Finn in excited waves. He can sense all the life nearby, from the frogs in the trees and the vines in the jungle, all the way to the tree standing over his husband’s and his parents’ graves.

There is beauty and life and death and pain. Finn can feel it all, and he knows it well. It’s pervasive throughout his life and his family and his home.

It’s a part of him and part of everything, and Finn understands. It will ache inside his chest then destroy him, and finally build him back up. Finn understands that he lives and will die loving and missing Poe.

But this is not the end.

**Author's Note:**

> “Picture a wave. In the ocean. You can see it, measure it, its height, the way the sunlight refracts when it passes through. And it's there. And you can see it, you know what it is. It's a wave.
> 
> And then it crashes in the shore and it's gone. But the water is still there. The wave was just a different way for the water to be, for a little while. You know it's one conception of death for Buddhists: the wave returns to the ocean, where it came from and where it's supposed to be.” -The Good Place
> 
> I'm such a mess for that quote it's not even funny. 
> 
> I'm not good with grief, but I am a little homesick. I wanted to explore grief, and all the complicated things that come with it... so have this. I hope you enjoyed, and I'm sorry that it's so incredibly depressing. Also, peep the kiddos from "hear my prayer" which is a longer and still depressing Finnpoe fic I've written.  
> Nevertheless, thank you for reading,and again, I sincerely hope you enjoyed this fic,


End file.
